Cecile Coleman, players’ performance chef, and her husband, Andy Morgan, season-ticket holder
Cecile: My job involved cooking breakfast and lunch for the players, as well as ordering the food in and working with a nutritionist to design the menu. Coming from France I’m a massive rugby fan, so this job was like a dream come true.
About nine months ago, I noticed some issues. They didn’t appear to be paying the suppliers. It was always difficult if I wanted something done or I wanted something extra, there was never any money. It was always a no. We were running out of basics like protein powder to make shakes for the players. In August, I got paid 65% of my wages and since then I’ve had nothing.
Most people left in September when they were told they wouldn’t get paid. I had some of the players in the kitchen with me cooking breakfast in the morning at 7am. One time they came in chef whites. Physically I couldn’t do it on my own so it was nice of them to help out.
When it was over I was devastated and I still am now. My job was like being a mother to 50 guys because I was cooking for them and they were always looking out for me, if I needed anything they were always there for me. I’ve done some agency work in different places and I’m looking for a permanent job. I’ve had some help financially from Andy’s mum and dad and I’ve got some savings put by, but it’s really hard.
Andy: My parents have been season-ticket holders for 25 years and I’ve been going since the late 90s. I ended up doing 60 hours of volunteering there towards the end, helping Cecile out. We had to start going to the cash and carry to get food – you can imagine what that was like when you’ve got to feed 70 players.
At that point the club was running thanks to the sheer courageousness of the staff, who were not being paid. Many people wouldn’t have bothered. But it’s like a massive family. When we heard it was over, it was like having your heart ripped out. We live not far from the ground and we’ve got friendships that have lasted years. We all stood in the same area in the south stand and we’ve become friends for life.
They organised an online auction to give some money to the staff who’ve got none whatsoever. They’ve got mortgages to pay, rent to pay. It’s really sad. We donated one of the prizes for the auction. We’ve got a signed shirt in a frame from the 2015-16 season. There’s a lot of people probably worse off than us so we wanted to do something.
At the weekend we used to look forward to the rugby and meeting up with friends we’ve known for 10-20 years. That’s gone. It’s only when you’ve completely lost it that you know what it meant.
Luke Broadley, team manager
My role was pretty all-encompassing – I was managing all rugby operations, logistics, working on contracts, training schedules. It was 24/7, an emotional rollercoaster, based on training and based on results or injuries. A lot of my job was trying to keep a good environment off-field because that goes such a long way in terms of the on-field performance.
We had to cut £1m off the budget this year so we knew things weren’t great, but we didn’t know we were on a cliff edge. By the end, we all knew it was coming, so everyone was gearing themselves up for it. But it hit us like a ton of bricks. When that hammer came down, it hurt.
I was trying to process it myself while dealing with 50 players and 40 staff. I had questions coming in from everybody, everyone was hurting, everyone was venting, everyone was upset. So I was trying to deal with that, as well as my own emotions and thought process.
Bearing in mind the last time we got a full salary was July, and this happened in October, you’re pretty pissed off at that point. I was expecting my first child a week later. We had worked our socks off for six months trying to save the club – they stabbed us in the back and left us high and dry, and I was sat there at home with a newborn on the way.
Thought I'd be missing rugby on a Saturday.
— Luke Broadley (@luke_broadley) October 15, 2022
Thanks to this little one who arrived yesterday, life suddenly has a whole new perspective 😍 pic.twitter.com/HO7AJFVTlZ
At the moment, I’m still without work, and many staff are in the same position – I don’t know anybody who has walked into the same job. You’ve got people with 20 years’ experience in professional sport, who are now working nine-to-five jobs just to make ends meet. I need to be paid at the end of November. By then it would have been four or five months since my last pay date.
The only hope is that Worcester can be brought back out of liquidation. It could be one of the greatest things to happen to Worcester, to press the reset button with all this support behind them and hopefully flourish.
Tracy Birch, treasurer of the Warriors Supporters Club
Me and my husband have been season-ticket holders since 2004 and been involved in the supporters club for many years. We organised events and coaches for away games, got people together when we went abroad, helped with travel issues. We looked after people and it was socialising more than anything else. We went to all matches, home and away.
We heard rumours about money troubles but we thought: “It’s just talk, it’s just talk.” Even when they said about going into administration, you just don’t believe it. My husband, it’s really hit him hard. Every Saturday was rugby basically.
To everybody else it sounds daft but it was like a bereavement. Because it was such a big part of your life and then all of a sudden it’s stopped, it’s just gone. You’re not meeting up with your friends every weekend. We’ve just tried to take our mind off it and we’ve hardly watched any rugby.
Being suspended from the Premiership, it feels as if they’re closing the gate on us. Even if we do win our appeal, we’ve got no players. The club was a big part of the Worcester community. You walk around town and you always see people wearing their Worcester tops. It still hurts what the owners did. There are families there that have lost everything. Like the caretaker who has lost his house because he lived on-site.
Noah Heward, Worcester Warriors full-back
I’ve just turned 22 and it is my fourth season at Worcester – was my fourth season, it still feels weird saying that. I had been with the club since I was 13-14. I came through the academy system. It was clear from what we had been told that the club had cashflow problems but I don’t think anyone expected it to get to the point that it did.
It’s hard to say whether it has actually sunk in yet, because I’ve not really had much time to process things on my own. I’ve been trying to think rationally about what’s next.
I’ve got no hard feelings against anyone who, even before we’d been liquidated, was looking for opportunities elsewhere. There’s a very finite amount of time that you can be a professional sportsman and you’ve got to take those opportunities, everyone knows that is how it is. Every player that has already signed to a different club, I’m really pleased for them.
I bought a house in Worcester last year and I’m studying PPE [philosophy, politics and economics] at the Open University. But I’m still looking for a role in rugby at the moment. My agent is working really hard and doing what they can. I wouldn’t be getting up and training so hard on a Monday morning if I wasn’t desperate to still be in rugby and give it another shot.
Everyone at the club should feel disrespected by the way the owners handled the situation. All the playing group are genuinely gutted, even players that have moved on to really good things. There’s still a genuine disappointment that they’re not doing that at Worcester, because what we had was a good thing.
Chris Derrick, kit manager
I had actually been with the club 15 years to the day when it got liquidated. I started on 5 October 2007. I was sorting out the coaches for training sessions, managing the laundry and making sure all the equipment was ready for match day. I’d be driving all over the place, I drove all over Europe to games and training camps.
We heard rumours that boys weren’t getting paid but I’ve been around a long time and occasionally stuff like that happens. But there was no communication about anything. We found most of it out in the press rather than anyone speaking to us to tell us what was going wrong.
We were just strung along and then the winding-up order happened on 5 October and our line managers messaged us to say: “That’s it now.” I’ve got a lot of connection to the club so emotionally it’s a bit of a shock but I’m always looking to progress and was ready for a new opportunity.
Financially I’m OK, I’ve got a little something to fall back on. But that pot of money is not going to last for ever so there is a bit of panic about what I am actually going to do further down the line. Last week I did some work on a building site, I’ve just found jobs to keep myself ticking over.
My fiancee, Beth, worked at the club as well, so we’re doubly hit. We both lost our jobs and we’ve got a mortgage to pay. Beth’s mum also worked in the ticket office and her dad was a season-ticket holder, he’s been going for 20-odd years. So it has impacted us quite a lot.
Cecil [Duckworth, former executive chairman] was involved when I first started working there and the way the club was built up under him, it would be unforgivable to lose what he dreamed for the club.
When I first started, the club was probably twice the size in terms of people involved behind the scenes. It won’t be forgiven but you’ve got to move on, you can’t really dwell on it. You’ve just got to get on with life.
